The Scattered and the Dead (Book 1): A Post-Apocalyptic Series (15 page)

“No answer,” he said. He set the phone on the table. This was his third attempt at calling. He’d hoped to convince the grandparents to take custody of the boys more or less, and he’d help all of them get set up at the cabin. The well with the hand pump, the wood burning stove and ample lumber supply. That was the place to be.

Kevin sipped at his root beer, lines creasing his forehead. He was the worrier of the two brothers.

“I’m sure everything is fine,” Mitch said. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll head over there in a bit.”

The room fell quiet. Kevin didn’t seem convinced.

Jesus, should I just tell them? Don’t I have to at some point?

“Hey, listen. I got you guys something,” he said.

They stood in a line in the back yard, the sun shining down on them and clouds scuttling across a blue sky. When you looked up at that, Mitch thought, you had no sense that the world was in the process of being flushed down the crapper.

A line of bottles and cans formed a row on the picnic table at the back of the yard, awaiting execution.

“Cover your ears,” Mitch said.

He watched to make sure they did as he said, and then he pointed the gun at the array of targets, settling his sights on a tomato soup can. He squinted one eye and fine-tuned his aim until he felt good, flicked off the safety, exhaled for a beat and squeezed the trigger. Wood and paint shavings splintered up from the top of the picnic table where the bullet grazed it. The two targets nearest the point of impact wobbled, but they didn’t fall over much less take any damage.

The boys chuckled, Matt even throwing his head back in delight, blond hair whooshing back to cover his forehead when he righted himself. Mitch flicked the safety back on and handed the gun to Kevin.

“Swing and a miss,” the boy said, taking the gun. His eyes glowed like it was Christmas when he gazed upon the firearm in his hand, like he’d just gotten something better than any video game console.

“Hey, I made contact. Could’ve been worse,” Mitch said. “Practice makes perfect, right?”

Kevin rolled his eyes. He aimed the gun.

“The safety is there,” Mitch said, pointing.

“Yeah, I get it,” Kevin said, without breaking his concentration.

“OK,” Mitch said.

Matt’s head swung from the gun to the bottles and back. The palms of his hands smothered his ears, his elbows pointed straight out. He made a face with the corners of his mouth pulled out and down. Mitch thought it kind of looked like he was caught in the middle of a huge windstorm.

The safety clicked. The hammer clacked. The Beretta blazed and popped. Glass crunched in the distance, and the top half of a Bass Ale bottle tumbled to the table in pieces, the bottom of it tottering three times and settling back into place.

“Yeah!” Matt said, clapping his brother on the back.

“Nice shot,” Mitch said.

Kevin just smirked at his dad. Mitch looked upon his son’s face. He knew the boy had no idea how happy, how relieved he was to have his son show him up like this. No idea.

“My turn?” Matt said.

Mitch looked at the gun, looked at the boy. He tried to picture the firearm in those tiny hands, and he couldn’t.

“Maybe not yet,” he said.

Matt smirked. Mitch thought he looked a little disappointed but not surprised.

“You’ll get your turn,” he said. “But we need to go visit with your grandparents now.”

Travis

Hillsboro, Michigan

50 Days after

He thought there was no way the dog would go inside with him, not after being trapped indoors like she was, but she did. She showed no concern, following him everywhere, seeming to trust him entirely. Still, he wanted her to be able to do what she liked.

The back door lay in the yard, balanced on a pair of saw horses. Popping it off the hinges had been easier than he anticipated, just a well placed chisel and a few hammer taps. Now he taped the paper template from the doggie door package to the bottom of the door, a double wide perimeter of green painter’s tape to help him see things better. He was pretty drunk after all.

At first, he thought it’d all be down to hand tools and elbow grease without any power for the drill or circular saw. No worries, he figured. Time was the one thing he had. However, the batteries in his dad’s cordless drill had enough juice to help him get started. No such luck with the saber saw. Either the battery was dead or the EMP fried it. He wasn’t sure. Still, the drill was better than nothing.

Thinking about it now, the only electronic devices that seemed to work — the drill and a small flashlight — had been stored in his dad’s metal toolbox. Maybe the metal shielded them from the pulse somehow. He felt like there was a name for this concept that he couldn’t remember.

A cigarette hung between his lips, smoke drifting into one eye. The drill whirred, cutting a pilot hole in each corner of the rectangle the hole would soon occupy. It felt crazy, hearing that little electric sound after going so long without anything like it. He went back over each hole, grooving them out a bit to better fit the saw inside, to give him a little room to work.

He paused, reaching over for the mason jar of warm martini and taking a slug. Movement caught his eye just then, and he glanced over his shoulder at the dog sitting on the back steps, mouth open, chest heaving, looking around. He smiled when he looked upon the beast. She had so much energy, was so enthusiastic that it couldn’t help but become infectious.

He plucked the cigarette from his mouth and flicked the ashes on the ground. Now came the elbow grease.

He figured the foldable sliding saw was probably designed for pruning shrubs or small tree branches in a garden. It would work, though, even if the going was rough. Maybe when the hole was bigger, he’d dig around for a tool more suitable for the job, something with finer teeth, but he kind of doubted it. The jagged edge would be covered by the plastic lip of the doggie door anyway, so why bother? Just plow through it, he thought.

He worked the saw up and down, slowly etching the first line in the door. The sound and the feel fell into a rhythm right away that lulled him into a distant state. Saw dust clumped in the gap where the saw slid, little tufts of it falling to the sides. His eyes took these things in but he barely noticed them, his mind drifting away to another place.

He wondered sometimes if the raiders broke down his door and killed his parents because they’d seen him hauling cigarettes or booze. He couldn’t think of why else they’d target his family. As it happened, they didn’t get his supply. At that point, he’d stored it all under the floorboards in his bedroom and the guest room, a hiding place which apparently eluded their search. He still had a decent amount under the floor now, though his collection had grown too big, and he felt secure enough to move the bulk of it to reside behind the locked oak door of his parents’ room now that he hardly saw anyone around town.

Still, the idea nagged at him, that perhaps he could be responsible for their deaths in a more direct sense. It was hard to say with any real certainty, but it wasn’t like these guys went door to door and killed everyone. They must have selected his house for a reason, right?

Maybe.

He finished the first cut, only making it about a half an inch into the painter’s tape perimeter before he noticed, which was a touch better than he expected of himself. He drank again, eyes closing as the booze plummeted down the drain. He imagined himself ordering this concoction:

“I’ll have a dry martini. Room temp. Not stirred.”

Erin

Presto, Pennsylvania

29 days after

She was frozen in front of the pantry door when the voice came from behind her.

“Language.”

Erin whirled around to find Izzy poking her head through the banister from below.

“I told you to wait downstairs!”

Izzy waggled a finger at her.

“That’s no excuse for the potty mouth, missy.”

“Fine. Come take a look and tell me it’s not Holy-Shit-worthy.”

Erin crossed back to the living room and threw open the curtains to let in some light. A beam of late afternoon sun illuminated one side of the pantry, casting a golden glow over the rows of canned goods. And that’s what all that food looked like to Erin. Solid gold.

All those cans and only
some
of them were beans.

Izzy hopped up the steps two at a time. Erin waited next to the pantry door with a toothy smile and some florid hand movements, trying to give the impression of a game show model revealing a prize.

Izzy’s eyes went wide at the sight of the stocked pantry.

“Jackpot!”

“I know. That’s kind of what I meant when I said ‘Holy Shit.’”

Erin held up a hand, and they high-fived.

“You swear too much,” Izzy said, then dropped to her knees and slid a few cans around.

“Should I start loading up bags?”

Erin sat down beside her and picked up a jar of salsa.

“Let’s eat first. I’m starving.”

“Me too,” Izzy said. “What should we have?”

Erin reached for a bag of Tostitos and a can of refried beans. It was the first can of beans she was actually kind of excited to eat.

“I’m thinking nachos.”

While Erin went into the kitchen to prepare the food, Izzy continued perusing the stockpile.

She heard a gasp from inside the pantry.

“What is it?”

Izzy chuckled. “You’ll see.”

She waddled into the kitchen carrying a can that was almost half her size. The label read “NACHO CHEESE” and depicted a waterfall of orange goop cascading into a bowl.

Erin looked from the gallon-size can of cheese to the bag of chips.

“I think we’re going to need more chips.”

While she assembled the nachos, Erin kept trying to do a Julia Child impression, even though she was pretty certain Izzy had no idea who Julia Child was.

“Today we’ll be making the classical French dish. Nachos! First, you want a generous amount of roasted corn chips, smudged liberally with refried beans -- always from a can, of course! Next, just to dress it up a bit, we’ll layer on a bit of nacho cheese, and finally, we garnish with a bit of salsa!”

After their feast, they began the task of unloading the shelves. Toward the back, Erin found two jars with handwritten labels.

“Hey!” She pulled one out to show Izzy.

“Strawberry rhubarb jam!”

Izzy pulled a plastic shopping bag from her pocket and shook it a few times to unwad it. Grasping it by the handles, she held it open while Erin filled it. In went the jars of jam and a can of chicken noodle soup.

Behind the jam jars was a Christmas tin. Erin pried the lid off.

“There’s the real jackpot.”

Izzy lifted herself on tiptoe to try to peek into the tin. Erin lowered it so she could see the wad of cash inside.

“Who hides money in the pantry?”

“I think it’s an old lady thing.”

She pushed the lid back on the tin and dropped it into the shopping bag with a clank.

Erin paused with a can of green beans in each fist. Another variety of bean she didn’t completely loathe. She tipped her head back, closed her eyes, and inhaled.

“I love that smell.”

Wrinkles formed across Izzy’s nose.

“You’re weird.”

“You’re over here talking about zombie poop, but
I’m
the weird one?”

The kid grinned and shrugged.

“My Grandma had a pantry just like this. And it had this exact smell.” She sniffed again.

“When I was about 12, I found a bag of peanut M&M’s in it. The expiration date was from a few months before I was even born.”

“What did you do with them?”

“I ate them. Duh.”

Izzy laughed.

Erin tossed a box of crackers into the last bag.

“That’s the last of the food. I’ll go scrape together whatever else I can.”

She unfurled a bag and plucked the rings and bracelets from her hands. They’d only get in her way carrying all this crap back. But she left the necklaces on.

She found a pack of batteries in a linen closet, as well as five rolls of toilet paper. That was how to get rich in the post-apocalypse. Toilet paper. If you stockpiled TP, you could probably make a killing.

Izzy was crossing the handles and tying the last bag closed when Erin met her back at the threshold of the pantry.

Erin added her bag to the row and counted them quickly.

“Six bags. Not bad.”

“What about the cheese?”

Erin followed Izzy’s gaze to the can on the counter. They’d barely put a dent in it.

“I guess we have to leave it. Too much to carry. And it probably wouldn’t keep anyway.”

“Seems like such a waste, though.”